Starbucks to Offer Customers Free WiFi by July

Prepare to settle in a little longer with your latte, Starbucks fans: By the end of June, the coffee company will be offering free WiFi in all of its U.S. stores.

Ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks has announced that it will implement free
wireless at all its U.S.
company-operated stores by July 1. Appearing at the Wired Business Conference:
Disruptive by Design, Starbucks CEO Howard
Schultz discussed "how the company sought to embrace social and digital
media and continues to look for new ways to bridge the third-place coffeehouse
experience with the digital world," the company said in a news release
June 14.

"Building on the WiFi update, Schultz also revealed plans for a new online
customer called the Starbucks Digital Network, experience in partnership with
Yahoo, which will debut later this fall. The online experience, available only
in U.S.
company-operated Starbucks stores, will ... [allow] customers free unrestricted
access to various paid sites and services such as wsj.com, exclusive content
and previews, free downloads, [and] local community news and activities, on
their laptops, tablets or smartphones," the company said.

"Driven by Digital Ventures, a new business unit within Starbucks led by CIO
and General Manager of Digital Ventures Stephen Gillett, the Starbucks Digital
Network in partnership with Yahoo ... provides a new channel for customer
engagement," Starbucks said. "Launch content providers will include
... iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA
Today, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo and Zagat."
As chain competitors like McDonalds have ratcheted up the sales pressure
with more sophisticated breakfast offerings, premium coffee options and free
wireless Internet, Starbucks is seeking ways to generate new revenue
opportunities.

"If you have eight people sitting in a store for 4 hours on one cup of
coffee, that's not moving revenue. However, if that same group is there for 4 hours
on one cup of coffee and buys 14 songs, that's sales," Gillett told The New York
Times. "We expect this to be a very versatile tool for people who are
using Starbucks for what we call the third place, between home and work,"
he said.

In June 2008, T-Mobile alleged that AT&T and Starbucks were not living up
to an agreement the three companies had reached over how Starbucks should
transfer from its T-Mobile partnership to a new partnership with AT&T. The
lawsuit, in part, concerned a section of the contract that would allow Starbucks
Rewards members to receive 2 hours of free WiFi per day. The lawsuit was
resolved within a week.

Nathan Eddy is Associate Editor, Midmarket, at eWEEK.com. Before joining eWEEK.com, Nate was a writer with ChannelWeb and he served as an editor at FierceMarkets. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.